Warwick_Tech Posted November 16, 2021 Posted November 16, 2021 Hi All, Like most of you (I assume) we share our office with some kit which needs to be kept cool. Our old Air-con was set at 19 degrees but it never did this, but after being replaced it's now a fridge most days. I suggested having the temperature set to 21 during work hours, then back to 19 at night/weekends What temperatures do you all run at? Our cabinet often sits at a warm 28 Degrees (apparantly) and that's even if the air-con fails as it's got it's own fan system.
Rob_D Posted November 16, 2021 Posted November 16, 2021 Server room AC is set to 17, but we don't work in there very much. IT suites are normally set to 21.
jthompson Posted November 16, 2021 Posted November 16, 2021 Our office is separate from our air-conditioned server rooms, thankfully, so we have the AC units set at whatever the AC guy recommends when he services them. We see about 19-20C ambient room temp.
HPlum78 Posted November 16, 2021 Posted November 16, 2021 When I used to care about these things I think the recommended temp was between 20 and 24 with a relative humidity of around around 40% (from memory). Much colder than 20 you introduce increased risks of condensation and static build up. If you have a large sever room/ data centre you probably want to look at cold aisle cooling solutions.
Andrew_C Posted November 16, 2021 Posted November 16, 2021 Providing the A/C can achieve the cooling required, there is little point setting the temp below that required by your equipment. Otherwise you are wasting power. 20-24 sounds reasonable.
DavR Posted November 16, 2021 Posted November 16, 2021 Our main server room runs at about 21C. Our secondary comms room, and any kit in ancillary locations, runs at whatever the temperature of the room is that day! If it's an inhabited room, anything between 20-25C is probably fine, you've got to look after the human machines too. Most kit runs just fine up to at least 30C environments, in my experience.
southhamster Posted November 16, 2021 Posted November 16, 2021 Also more pleasant work in. I still have memories as a young techie of working all day in a server room in coat and hat with the Aircon roaring away near my head. Noone knew how to turn it off and all the tech team were unavailable. I was expecting penguins and polar bears in there it was so cold!
mavhc Posted November 16, 2021 Posted November 16, 2021 The problem is you want to be reading the temperature inside the servers, not in the air next to the aircon 1
Koldov Posted November 16, 2021 Posted November 16, 2021 I've chilled out about it a little more nowadays... I used to make sure I went in after the aircon engineer had been in to service it and knocked it down a couple of degrees (he set it at 21 degrees)... Anyway, I recently undertook the task of relocating our servers from their dedicated server room (glorified cupboard but with AC) into the switch/comms/plant room. There were a few advantages apart from being able to plug directly in to the core switch and teaming the NICs (oh, and giving the school another cupboard to fill with archive/junk): Turn off the AC in the old server room - less money on servicing and saving electricity (I mean saving the planet)... The AC in the new room is a proper industrial unit and was put in by the council and they pay to service it. But as for the OP, the AC is set to 21 degrees, the servers being towers have a digital display on the front and both report similar temperatures (however I just checked the comms cab and the WLC reports 38 degrees so I'm going to take the front off the cab for a bit).
jthompson Posted November 16, 2021 Posted November 16, 2021 The problem is you want to be reading the temperature inside the servers, not in the air next to the aircon Ideally, both, so as to monitor the running temp of servers, UPS batteries, etc. as well as the operation of the AC unit itself.
KevinB Posted November 18, 2021 Posted November 18, 2021 We've had ours set to 19C for years, with an alarm if it goes above 25. Before we had monitoring we found out the hard way what happens when air con fails. The servers (9 tower style ones, this was pre-virtualisation) all started to temp-throttle then shut down. Cue a visit to the server room only to be hit by tropical temperatures (45C!) in the room and walls which were hot to the touch.
dhicks Posted November 18, 2021 Posted November 18, 2021 I suggested having the temperature set to 21 during work hours, then back to 19 at night/weekends If I remember correctly, there was a paper out a few years ago (from either Google or Backblaze, I can't remember which) looking at the relationship between temperature and disk / general hardware failure. I seem to remember that the conclusion was that higher-than-you-might-think temperatures were okay, but the consistancy of those temnperatures was more important. So 21 degrees (or a bit higher, if you like) is fine, but a consistant 21 degrees is the important bit. If you're in the same room as the equipment you might want to try a baffle of some sort between your workspace and the equipment - it's surprising how much temperature difference a simple pane of wood or just a curtain can make, especially if you have fans that are circulating air around the baffled-off area.
Chaniel Posted November 18, 2021 Posted November 18, 2021 Our server room AC is set to 21C and we have a sensor in the rack to monitor ambient temp - alerts after it gets to 25C.
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